tracygreen.com

Since January I’ve had some type of flu virus on three different occasions.  Aside from the nausea, aches, chills, and the weakness that follows for days as a time, the flu also deadens my creative senses.  I’ve been limited to looking critically at some of the later portions of my manuscript which is very dissatisfying.  I hate proofreading and looking over my own work in a weakened state is generally discouraging. 

I’m pressing on though and great progress is still being made.  I’m pressing on to what will be the final final manuscript which will complete this prolonged three year rewrite process.  Three years to rewrite what I basically had written in a few months.  I’m reminded of a line from the movie Animal House where Donald Sutherland played a hip professor that talked about finishing his book:

Prof. Jennings: Teaching is just a way to pay the bills until I finish my novel.

Boon: How long you been workin’ on it?

Prof. Jennings: Four and a half years.

Pinto: It must be very good.

Prof. Jennings: It’s a piece of shit.

This has been a pretty fun year as writing goes.  In my experience the best writing experience comes from immersing your sensibilities within the setting of your story.  When I say "best writing experience" I mean that when the writing is over and you’re holding words that are a product…one can’t necessarily determine where the author was really into what he was writing.  A well-crafted prose can disguise that.

The experience.  The fun in writing.  I know two other authors that seem to struggle so much to produce a product that they have stopped loving the task of writing.  I wrote a poem in 10th grade that was very much an insufferable work understood only by behavioral psychologists and other sixteen year olds.  It was fun to write.  It was fun to hear the teacher read it in class.  It was fun to see people smile, smirk, put on a face, and stare quietly.  Whenever writing reveals itself to be less than what I’ve just described…it is then that the experience is over and I may as well be doing dishes.  I hate doing dishes.

It’s difficult to approach writing without an emotional investment.  I have a hard time trusting my skills to formulate a story unless I can feel what I’m writing.  I’ve written many things that others have liked but I get bored even proofreading.  I either lack confidence or I am bored too easily.  Lately both have been true.

Tales of the Empathy Impaired has been more to me than just a writing project.  Writing stories that capture the human condition and explore relationships from a detached point-of-view is just plain difficult.  In many ways these stories attempt to defy what people like when reading.  I don’t love my characters and sometimes it shows…but to be fair, they don’t love me either.

I get a few emails every once in awhile asking why my only picture on the site is me in a Unabomber pose.  Below I’ve included both photos for comparison:

	Me	Unabomber

As you can see, I don’t resemble the Unabomber at all as I’m wearing a knitted beanie cap instead of a hood and I’m wearing much cooler sunglasses.  Aviator sunglasses are so 70’s.

I used this photo of me on the back of the Advanced Reading Copy of my book so that people would not recognize who I was.  My hope was to get a more objective opinion.  Did it help?  No.

Another obvious difference that you could not possibly know from the photo is that the Unabomber lived in a shack and I live in an underground bunker.  Any reasonable person would not confuse us.

Hope that clears it up!

This is like a brand new look and junk.  Tracy, you’re so cool!